


Our Ghosts

by Fujiwara_no_Seimei



Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-05
Updated: 2011-05-05
Packaged: 2017-10-19 01:07:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/195206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fujiwara_no_Seimei/pseuds/Fujiwara_no_Seimei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Touya Akira is chasing Shindou Hikaru, as he has for his entire life.  He’s pursued, caught up, tripped, and lost sight of him– but always gotten back up and found him again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. “Why do you suddenly appear before me all the time?”

The preliminaries for the Meijin title were almost over, and Akira had found himself in a familiar place on the ground, staring up at a mystery that was always just too far out of his reach.

“Shindou!” Akira shouted, punctuating his rival’s name with a slam of his palms on the table. “Where were you on Saturday? You forfeited your game!”

Hikaru inhaled carefully, and the look in his eyes almost broke Akira’s fury- this particular glare meant he had crossed an invisible line into territory that had been marked as off-limits long ago.  
“It’s not your business,” Hikaru replied, and opened his goke as if it were the closing quotation mark on the conversation. “Nigiri.”

Touya usually – always, actually – backed down after Hikaru gave him that look. That glare that said _“Someday! I told you I’d tell you someday!”_

But this time, Akira was an extra degree of furious at Shindou, which meant two things:  
1\. That he was not going to back off, and,  
2\. Something was going to get broken.

“Don’t you dare treat league games as if you’re above them. Above me.” The word “me” came out as a direct assault. He hadn’t even opened his goke.  
Hikaru fired back as best he could, heat rising in his chest. “Don’t make this about you, Touya. Everything isn’t about you.” He battled Akira’s stare for a moment, before saying, with no hidden emphasis, _“Ni. Gi. Ri.”_

Akira was in no mood to comply. Murmurs were rising on the other side of the salon, even the other patrons know that this fight was going to have casualties.

“What exactly was so important that you had to miss your match?”  
“If you don’t put some stones on this goban in the next three seconds, I’m not playing with you, Touya!”

Touya raised an eyebrow.

They’d been playing the whole time.


	2. “Don’t worry.  I won’t appear before you again.”

It was his own fault, really. Akira knew how the game worked, and he’d clearly chosen to ignore the rules. He would stumble onto an artifact of Hikaru’s relationship with “Sai”, a history they shared through pubescence, and Hikaru would sternly and opaquely suggest he ask about something else. Akira was used to this.

Most of the time (necessarily, all of the time, until yesterday) Akira had no issue with complying. Delaying the reveal of Hikaru’s secrets was a small price to pay for the opportunity to advance by his side. He trusted that Hikaru would make good on his promise to tell him, someday.

When Akira sat down at his goban for the next match, he caught sight of Hikaru across the room, all bright colors and bleached hair, as expected and exactly how he hoped it would always be. Hikaru ignored Akira completely, making good on his promise _not to speak to Akira again, if he wasn’t going to respect his privacy._

Akira did wonder when he’d started seeing Hikaru’s need for privacy as a personal insult.


	3. “If you keep chasing after an illusion of me, I’ll pass by you, in time!”

“Let me have my secrets, Touya,” he’d said. “I let you have yours.”  
Akira had glared.   
“I don’t have any,” he’d hissed. “None that I keep from you.”  
“Why are you always trying to make my ghosts about you? Since when are my secrets attacks on you?!”  
Now they were shouting, and the salon was still, patrons looking on in silence.  
“Since–” Touya had began.

...then faltered. Then stopped and cast his eyes down as Hikaru practically flung himself out of the salon.

\--

Hikaru had walked out on their game, and probably on their rivalry, and certainly out of Akira’s life. The salon patrons would refer to it as “ _the_ fight” and they’d treated Akira delicately, and kept mentions of Hikaru to a minimum, ever since.

It wasn’t until about a week later, when the final round of the prelims had been realized, that Akira knew how to end the sentence he had begun with the word “since.”

In four days, Akira and Hikaru would play one another for the challenger seat for the Meijin title.


	4. “Do you want to play now, and not eventually?”

Hikaru was forced to face Akira. Forced to face him on the battlefield, and not any of the other, more peaceful places Akira had mentioned in futile phone messages- _a cafe? A ramen shop? My house?_

No, they would discuss matters over the go board, and without words.  
It was dangerous.

Akira did not want to sit down and face Hikaru, only to see him walk away when the game was over. No, he’d had enough of unattainable things being close enough to touch. So he conjured up an excuse for them to exchange even a few words after the game was over. He sent HIkaru one last email before the match, the night before.

 _”If I win, tell me where you went on Children’s Day. If you win, I’ll tell you since when your secrets are attacks on my person.”_

After sending it, and rolling over in his futon, phone clutched tight in his hand, he could almost see Hikaru in his mind. Getting the message. Getting angry about it. Rolling over in a huff, resolved not to respond, bemoaning the indignity of it. Then wondering. Softening. Considering if he didn’t actually want to know the answer to Akira’s end of the wager. Picking up the phone again–

And Akira’s phone buzzed, flashing a message that read, “Fine.”

Three years ago, they had played one another in the first match of the Meijin league preliminaries. Tomorrow, they would face one another in the last.


	5. “Soon, you will appear before me. With the answer to the mystery that’s behind you.”

Akira won by a half-moku.

The game was absolutely stunning, and ruthless. No one in the room knew that it was because they’d had so much at stake. That, and because the deprivation of one another’s go had been crippling, and facing one another again had found them hungry, like lovers who were apart from one another’s skin for far too long.

Their game had been a work of art. Both young men sweating by the end, Akira cautiously triumphant and Hikaru thoroughly angry with himself for losing.

They didn’t stay to review the game. With some fancy dodging, they made their way into the kifu storage room, door locked behind them.

Several beats of silence passed before Hikaru inhaled hard and ran his hand through his bangs, cursing silently.

“I’ll tell you anyway,” Akira said, softly. “Even though I won.”  
Hikaru turned to face Akira, but did not look him in the face.

“Innoshima,” he said, just above a whisper.  
“Innoshima?” Akira said. “That’s where you went?”  
Hikaru nodded. Looked defeated. Sad.  
“Do you... have family there?” Akira probed, venturing a step closer to his rival.  
Hikaru shook his head. “I told you I’d tell you where I went. Not why.”  
Akira’s chest was tight. He knew Hikaru was upset, but hoped to diffuse the tension by revealing his own secret.

“Shindou.” He said. It stood alone, not as part of a sentence. He waited for Hikaru to look up at him.

When he did, Akira went on. “As your _rival_ , it isn’t my place to demand to know the answers to your secrets. I understand that. And you probably don’t believe me, but I _am_ sorry for forcing you to answer me.”

“I do,” Hikaru replied. “I know you’re sorry, that’s why being angry at you is so fucking hard.” Hikaru sniffed. “I just don’t understand why you did it anyway.”

Akira took in a deep breath, stepping forward again, now almost toe to toe with Hikaru. “You asked why I make your ghosts about me. You asked why I found your keeping secrets insulting to me. I thought... that the answer to that might explain why.”

Suddenly, Hikaru couldn’t take his eyes off of his rival, pupils bottomless with eagerness and anticipation.

“I pursued you since I was a child. In order to learn your secrets. About Sai. About your two selves. That was my goal. The puzzle drove me for my entire career, for as long as I’ve known you.”

Hikaru’s hands clenched at the table he was supporting himself on.

“Your secrets have been insults to me since my pursuit of you stopped being about your secrets.”

Hikaru’s breath was shaky. He looked only at Akira’s face, waiting for more explanation.

Akira’s eyes matched his. “I’m not after your secrets any more. Shindou.” He turned away, cupping his mouth in his hand. “I’m after you.”

Hikaru lurched up and put his hand on Akira’s shoulder, urging him gently to turn and face him.  
“What do you mean? Touya? What does that mean? After me?”

Akira shook his head. “I don’t want you to not keep secrets from me because I want to know your mystery, Shindou. Sometime ago, it became that I didn’t want you to keep secrets because...”

a pause.

“Because I don’t want there to be any secrets separating us.”

“Separating us?”

Akira spun around angrily. “Even if you said you’d never tell me, I’d still be chasing you!” The combination of embarrassment and relief sent Akira out of the room by his own feet. He felt Hikaru’s eyes on his back and felt his rival lurch towards him, but he did not follow.


	6. The game you play is what you are. That won’t change, and that’s all I need.

Even though it was within an arm’s reach, Akira let the phone ring three times before he picked it up, later that night. It took him that long to decide whether he could handle hearing Hikaru’s voice. That long to realize he couldn’t handle _not_ hearing HIkaru’s voice, so he’d better pick up before he missed the call.

“Shindou,” he said.  
“Touya,” Hikaru replied. His voice was raspy, serious, and a little hopeful.  
“What do you need?” Akira said, praying that _a little more of an explanation about what you said earlier_ was not the answer.  
“Listen,” Hikaru could be heard clearing his throat, “You don’t have to answer now. Because it’s a long way away. But.”  
Akira felt his heart racing. He didn’t know why, but could hear that Hikaru was putting a lot of himself into whatever he was about to request.  
“Next year. You should come with me. I’d... like you. To come with me. On Children’s Day. That’s all I wanted to say.”

The last sentence was rushed, and it barely registered what had been said before he noticed the dial tone ringing in his ear.


End file.
